Hearings on House Bill 597, the latest attempt to repeal Ohio’s New Learning Standards (which include the Common Core in math and English language arts), started August 18 and will continue this week. We’ve already discussed how similar HB 597 is to the Common Core. This should be a major issue for Common Core opponents—who should be mortified to find the fingerprints of Common Core all over their championed bill—but also for everyone else. HB 597 doesn’t specifically demand much of Ohio’s to be developed standards, but what it does demand is already in the Common Core. That should leave most of us wondering why we’re even holding these hearings if what proponents want is already in place. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only problem with HB 597. Let’s take a look at some others.
The most troublesome aspect of the bill appears right at the beginning of the changes: It could all but end state oversight of public schools. The bill text reads: “no state funds shall be withheld from a school district or school for failure to adopt or use the state academic content standards or the state assessments.” Basically this means that even if the proponents of HB 597 get what they want, and Ohio goes through the grueling process of forcing teachers and students to abide by three sets of standards in four years, schools face no consequences if they choose to ignore those standards and their accompanying assessments. In other words, school districts don’t technically have to follow standards or give assessments at all. Ohio districts already have flexibility when it comes to following the state standards and still have that flexibility under Ohio’s New Learning Standards, but allowing districts to choose not to use state assessments would send the Buckeye state years backward to a time when accountability was nonexistent. The language is certainly odd, considering more than one proponent has boasted in testimony to “support accountability.” Do proponents believe that Ohio’s 40 percent college remediation rate will decrease if we stop monitoring kids’ progress and using it to identify needed supports and interventions?
Drafting new Ohio standards within the timeframe that HB 597 prescribes will be a problem, too. The bill states that “Not later than June 30, 2016 […] the state board of education shall adopt new statewide academic content standards for each of grades kindergarten through twelve in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies that are distinct and independent from the standards previously adopted by the state.” At the hearings on August 18, the bill sponsors acknowledged that it was impossible for Ohio to draft new learning standards for the upcoming 2014-15 school year, or even for 2015-2016. Instead, Ohio will be subjected to another state’s standards (in direct opposition to the “Ohio-only” mantra we heard both last week and last November) until our “real” homegrown standards are completed. While sponsors seem to think two years is enough to draft entirely new standards in English language arts, mathematics, science, and history for grades K-12, they are ignoring that drafters won’t actually get two years.
In order for this bill to become law, it must pass through the House, the Senate, and be signed by the Governor. Right now, the House vote isn’t even planned until November. Even if the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the Governor in November, that leaves drafters with only one and a half years (all of 2015 and half of 2016) to work with, not including the time it takes to actually get the standards adopted (remember, they have to be adopted, not written, by June 30). That also means that although teachers will have the entire 2016-17 school year to learn the new standards, they’ll be learning one set of standards while teaching with a completely different set. Common Core implementation has been happening for four years—and many teachers are still voicing concerns over needing more time to truly internalize them. How confusing will it be, then, when teachers are forced to learn and teach two separate sets of standards at one time?
The financial implications of HB 597 are also worrisome. Proponents are asking Ohio school districts to abandon millions of dollars of investment in the Common Core. They claim that Common Core is expensive, but they’re not asking for repeal in the name of saving districts money or being fiscally responsible. In fact, they’re planning to ask districts to fork out millions more for materials and professional development that align with two completely new-to-Ohio sets of standards, one of which hasn’t even been written yet. Since it hasn’t been written, that means even more money has to be spent. This brings forth another problem; these new Ohio standards would be just that—brand new, never tested, and unproven. The bill’s sponsor mentioned repeatedly how Ohio wanted proven standards. That explains why proponents want to move to Massachusetts standards in between Common Core and the new standards. It doesn’t explain why we’d go back to unproven standards, or why a bill sponsor would so blatantly cherry pick which unproven standards he supports and which ones he doesn’t.
One final note: HB 597 explains that if the state board of education wants to adopt or revise standards, “The standing committee having jurisdiction over education legislation in each house shall conduct at least one public hearing on the proposed standards or revisions.” This is interesting, since HB 597 itself completely circumvented the Education Committee by going to the Rules and Reference Committee (which one of the bill sponsors happens to chair). House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Gerald Stebelton (R) explained that “It’s obvious that this panel is stacked for delivery of a favorable vote.” Rep. Tracy Maxwell Heard (D) noted on the opening day of hearings that Education Committee members would’ve liked to be a part of the hearings for HB 597. The bill says they can…once Common Core is repealed and new standards must be drawn up. For now, they’re unwillingly out of the loop.
On the first day of HB 597 hearings, Rep. Huffman opened by asking the representatives on the committee to consider the future of policymaking in Ohio. He argued that the Common Core represented a form of policymaking that is bad for Ohio—and implied that HB 597 would pave the way for making future education policy decisions in the Buckeye state. With all the aforementioned problems, it’s hard to understand how HB 597 is good policymaking—let alone good for the educators and students of Ohio. It’s also worth noting that while Republican bill sponsors may want to set standards via the legislature now, they might feel differently in the future if the Governor and the majority of the legislature are Democrats. Regardless of who controls the Governor’s office, the House, and the Senate, setting academic standards through the legislature is bad precedent. Add to that the circumvented (and rightly angered) Education Committee, and remarks from Senate President Faber that, unlike the House, the Senate will “always do everything through normal committee processes,” and we’ve got ourselves a roadmap for exactly what Rep. Huffman claims he wants to avoid: bad policymaking.
